Deloitte Belgium, the Belgian subsidiary of the global corporate services conglomerate, claimed in its yearly press release of 2020 that the company was able to reduce its carbon emissions by a third over the last three years. This claim turns out to be uncheckable.
Deloitte is globally settled in over 150 countries with Deloitte Central Europe covering 18 countries. On its website Deloitte states that it is set on achieving net-zero CO2-emissions. In a recent press release, the Belgian subsidiary says it is well on its way to achieve that goal as it has allegedly reduced its emissions by a third over the last three years.
However, in that same press release, Deloitte adds the nuance that the change in behavior due to the global pandemic accounted for a part of that reduction as under a simulation of “normal behavior” the reduction would only amount to 23%. The company also says the mileage has gone down by 17 percent in comparison to 2017. However, the concrete data and methods supporting this claim are not published in the report.
No evidence for the claim
Therefore EUfactcheck asked Deloitte Belgium’s marketing and communications department to share the data and calculations the conclusions of the report are based on. After a number of emails and phone calls, managing director Tom Meynendonckx promised to send EUfactcheck the requested data.
However, EUfactcheck never received the promised information. Two months after the initial request, the firm’s communication officer stated that she was not able to give any of the requested information, ‘as all the methods, statistics and results are intellectually and commercially owned by Deloitte’.
Conclusion
Because of Deloitte Belgium’s refusal to share its data and methods, the claim that the company has reduced its CO2-emissions by a third is uncheckable.
RESEARCH | ARTICLE © Jellen Monsieur and Andreas De Worm , Thomas More University of Applied Sciences
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